CPR – Moving from old practises to new

Moving from old practises to new : The Importance of renewing your CPR annually

As a previous nanny, parent and the founder of WONDERWOMAN CHILDREN (the preferred provider for the Australian Nanny Association and Australian Childcare Alliance Victoria) â€“ I can not express enough how important it is to ensure those working with children maintain up to date and practise CPR annually. We know as a community that children are one of the most vulnerable age groups to injury and acknowledge that most of these injuries are preventable and related to falls, road accidents, burns, poisoning and drowning.

It is therefore the responsibility of those that care for our children of the community to ensure they keep up to date and take every opportunity to practise and renew these skills – if not the recommended once a year as a minimum, but if anything twice a year! The reason for this is any research will indicate that a skills practised is a skill learnt and we can never learn too much about what to do in an emergency!

One of the biggest changes recently is that breathing is not a compulsory part of CPR. But this does not mean that the Australian Resuscitation Council has given rescue breathes the boot, it just means for those that arenâ€™t first aid trained, up to date or confident that it is acknowledged than any CPR is better than none and compression only is easy and simple to administer. This is only one of the few changes to what we teach and recommend and at WWC we like to ensure that all our trainers are up to date â€“ and advocate for you to be also!

Anyone working with children knows that anything can happen, even with your eyes peeled on them! So please from a parent, a carer, a nanny and first aid fan please ensure that although in your industry it is only â€œrecommendedâ€ remind yourself that the reason we ask for you to keep up to date isnâ€™t to hassle you, annoy you or make you spend your hard earned money â€“ it really is to ensure that children have the best chance of surviving an emergency under you care.